


Match and Miss

by Flannigan



Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Couch Cuddles, Cutting, Established Relationship, M/M, Possessive Language, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:50:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flannigan/pseuds/Flannigan
Summary: Casimiro and Finas have had several soulmarks over the centuries. They've never matched each other, signifying they are meant for someone else. They don't care.





	1. Another One

**Author's Note:**

> Originally from my artblog.

No. Not another one. 

Finas pulled up the sleeve on his rigth arm to watch his naked skin. It burned like a hot iron pressed into his flesh, and he saw the beginnings of inky marks swirl into place on the underside of his lower arm. Somewhere, someone had just been decided to be his soulmate, and the same mark appeared on the same spot on their body, just as painful. 

After a minute Casimiro wandered into the room, voice cutting off and grin falling off his face when Finas met his eye. Oh, he knew what was happening, and sank down in the sofa by his side.

“How long?”

“Just started.” 

When the mark had settled Casimiro’s knuckles were ground down a good deal from the crushing grip he had on his hand. He’d complained, but not tried to get his hand back until Finas let him go.

Knowing it was no use, he still tried to wipe it off, smear the constellation of dots and lines into unintelligible nothing, but it was as pristine and clear as it would always be until either died. He should’ve expected a new mark to appear since the last one faded a few days ago. He always got a new one.

“The longer it takes, the more it’s meant to be.” Casimiro said, “51 minutes. Got to be some kind of record.” 

“Don’t,” Finas said, “this means nothing- I don’t care about whomever this points to.” 

“If you two meet, you will.” 

“I don’t care about this person,” he repeated, all but growling, “They can’t ever replace you.”

“I’d kill them before they could try.”

Anger surged inside of him, furious of how God invalidated what he and Casimiro had. The mark on his arm told him he’s supposed to be with someone else. Like they weren’t true. Like he could have someone _better_. He and Casimiro didn’t have matching marks, but they didn’t need mystic scribbles to know.

His nails merged with his fingerbones, turning into long claws. They cut through the lines and dots. They were in a vague triangle shape, dozens of small shapes blending together, fanning out on one side. It was beautiful, but Finas hated it as much as he hated the mark on Casimiro’s shoulder blade. He hoped they felt this pain.

Casimiro’s arm was tight over his shoulders, mouth against his ear. 

“They have no fucking claim over you,” he whispered, voice shaking with repressed anger. “You’re fucking mine, not someone else’s. And Squiggly doesn’t have a claim on me. No one’s gonna take me from you.” 

His flesh had already healed up - the mark was pristine and perfect again, not even a scar. Claws gone, he lamely clenched and unclenched his hands. Casimiro’s words calmed him, and the distress he couldn’t calm he forced down and ignored. Casimiro settled his head on his shoulder, taking slow breaths to calm down. 

Finas pushed down his sleeve. Seemed like long sleeves would be a permanent part of his wardrobe for the indefinite future.


	2. Squiggly

Casimiro had slammed the door behind him and rushed to find him in the living room, eyes wide and hands shaking. He'd said one sentence and sunk down in the sofa with his face in his palms. Finas, in the armchair by the fireplace, dropped a century old hardcover book on the floor. 

"You found Squiggly?" he repeated Casimiro's words, standing up. "Your soulmate?" 

"It's fucked up,” Casimiro said and curled his hands into fists, still hiding his face. "It's not normal, I shouldn't like someone so much after just a minute of talking." He looked up at Finas, eyes pleading. "That's not normal, is it?" 

"... Calm down," he replied, sitting down at his side, hand coming to rest on his back. "Tell me what happened." 

"I didn't tell them that we're matching," Casimiro said, eyes shut. He looked nauseous, so Finas started gently rubbing his back."...They gave me their number. Invited me in. And-" Casimiro stopped, stumbled over his words. 

"Breathe," Finas urged him. He had a looming feeling where this was going. Reminded himself to breathe.

"It doesn't matter what happened. The point is, I-" Finas tried to latch onto him as he shot up and moved to the fireplace, holding onto the mantle and stayed silent.

"The point is?" Finas prompted when he couldn't take the silence any longer. He wanted to rise and touch him when he still could, but he was afraid. Afraid of what he would be told. 

Casimiro shook his head, turned his face away. Finas swallowed. 

"Do you love them?" he asked and wished he hadn't. He saw Casimiro flinch and his knuckles whiten.

"Finas, let me explain," Casimiro begged the wall. He managed to rise to his feet despite how lightheaded he felt. 

"You only met them today. How can you possibly-?"

"It's different when it's your soulmate." Casimiro spat the word out like it tasted foul on his tongue, and pulled in a sharp breath. "You know what they say it's like. We _fit_." 

Finas looked down at the floor, aware of an eerie stillness coming over him. Like the surface of a lake with spiraling currents beneath. This was all wrong. Casimiro was his- not some mere human's. 

Casimiro glanced at him over his shoulder. 

"Say something."

What could he say? He didn't want to hear this. None of this. 

"How strongly do you feel for them?" 

Casimiro's eyes had gone wet, and he turned away again. It was answer enough.

Finas put his hand on the inside of his right lower arm. Somewhere, there was a person - other than Casimiro – who was his _fit_ , who'd _understand_ him. Like his late wife, his first soulmate. But they had grown up together, of course they had known each other inside and out. Could the match-up really be that seamless? He'd be able to have that once more. 

He pinched his skin where the mark sat. He didn't need them. He already had Casimiro. 

Had. He pulled in a shaking breath.

"Are you leaving me?" It came out in such a low whisper Casimiro didn't hear, or perhaps he did, but couldn't make himself answer. It's what you did when you found your "perfect match". No one would even blame him. 

"I thought that we'd been ridiculous," Casimiro said just as low, "You and I, we'd never felt so right before. So obvious." 

"You don't belong together," he had to struggle to make his voice steady. "You're mine, have always been, and will always be. You know it, tell me you do." 

"I know," Casimiro breathed out, drew the back of his hand across his cheek in a quick movement. "And yet they made me forget it."

Casimiro turned around to face him, and Finas looked away, waiting for the worst. That he no longer belonged to him, he had really found someone _better_. Only knowing them for less than a day. The thought made his chest ache. 

"I killed them." 

Finas looked up. At his admission Casimiro's mismatched eyes threatened to overflow again. Finas stared at him.

"What?" he said, and Casimiro's chest started heaving with deep breaths and he snarled. 

"I killed them,” he repeated, like he just now realized what it meant. “and I couldn't even stay to watch. I left them to die...!" His voice rose into a cry and he struck out at the armchair. It fell over with a loud bang. He began to lose his humanity before his eyes. "I could feel it like it was me, Finas! They died alone and afraid!" He grabbed it by the leg and hurled it across the room just past Finas.

He breathed hard, the bone-white face underneath his skin peeking through his furious expression. Each ragged breath gave way to despair, and the fizzling smoke and smell of singed flesh disappeared, his own face whole again. Finas watched him drop to his knees and clutched over his face, shoulders shaking as he started to cry.

Finas didn't know if he felt relieved or concerned. Both?

He closed the distance between them and sat on his kees before him, taking him by the shoulders and held him close. Felt him bury his face against his chest and fingers dig into his long-sleeved shirt. 

"I _had_ to kill them, I had no choice," Casimiro tried to explain to Finas or to himself. 

“You did what you always promised to do. You didn't let them replace me,” he whispered and pressed his lips to the crown of his head. “Thank you.” Casimiro made a strangled cry.

"It hurts." 

"Your mark?" Finas' palm was over his left shoulderblade. 

"No."

"Casimiro..." He wove his arms tighter around him, but it only caused him to shake harder.

"I'm sorry," Casimiro cried, "I swear there's only you, _I_ chose you on my own, I'm _real_ \- we're _real_ -"

"You didn't do anything wrong. This isn't your fault." 

"I'm sorry,” Casimiro continued like he hadn't heard him, his voice deteriorating into moans and muffled screams.

Finas tried to comfort him but he was under no illusion he could mend a broken heart. For Casimiro had loved them - influenced by the matching marks most likely – but love all the same.

He listened to his partner curse God and the universe and the world for toying with his emotions so cruelly. Finas could just hold him, and pray he never met his match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> www.it-s-blue-ink.tumblr.com


	3. Not There

"Turn over," Finas breathed, fingers digging into Casimiro's naked hip. The response to the command was bared teeth and hostile, yet so eager to please, if you knew how to look.

Casimiro's body bore marks on hard to reach places, and Finas touched as many he could while he watched him reposition on his stomach for him. He grabbed the back of his thigh, pinching the pinwheel shape while he spread his legs apart. Heard his blended moan and yelp, and smirked.

When his heart still beat, Casimiro's first soulmark was at the very top of his neck, joining with the fuzz of uncut hair. He gripped the area, not kindly. It was faded and barely visible, but he knew it was there and that was enough to offend him. Each mark was a boldfaced lie, a brand of ownership that couldn't be true. 

"Lies," he growled as his anger and indignation flared and turned his nails into claws, digging into it. Drops of blood bubbled up, black as tar. Casimiro pulled at the sheets, hissed out sharper with each scratch through it, with each desecration of the 'sacred soulmarks'. 

"Do the others," Casimiro said through gritted teeth, arching his back and pushed his arse against his cock, keening at the pain he wanted. A shiver danced through Finas as he listened to him beg and moan for deeper cuts, and he gladly complied with one hand, as his other hand mercifully without claws slipped a finger inside as preparation.

He worked thoroughly on the other mark, saving Squiggly for last. The squiggly lines on his left shoulderblade had already faded some. These were the precious few days before he recieved a new soulmark, when Casimiro was unclaimed, wasn't promised to someone else anywhere across the globe. He was no one's. He was Finas'.

Casimiro pulled in a sharp breath, rose up on his elbows and looked over his shoulder. Finas held the gaze of his seeing eye and scratched deep through the mark, lines of blood rolling down his spine. Casimiro swallowed, closed his eyes. 

"Finas- Finas-" he started to chant his name between shallow gasps. 

He removed his fingers, pushed him down on the bed with a hand over his neck. All three marks on his back that mocked him were entirely gone from his bloodied skin- until they'd heal back again. 

"All right?" he quietly asked, smearing the blood under his hand stroking down his back, and fetched the lube from the nightstand. 

"Yeah," Casimiro said. Finas rocked his hips against him, his cock sliding and teasing, watched him writhe and grip the silken sheets he didn't want to tear. He spat curses at his slowness while Finas slicked them both up.

He fucked him into the bed, fast and hard and panting though he didn't need to, Casimiro whimpering below him as though he hadn't asked for this. 

Afterwards he laid down next to his side, neither managing words. His arm rested over his waist and face nestled against his shoulder where he placed soft kisses for a few silent minutes. Casimiro turned his face towards him and closed his eyes. He wanted to touch, remain close, but then Casimiro shifted out of his grip. 

He sat up on his knees and looked down at Finas, poked him in the side until he laid on his back. Card-shuffler fingers slid over his bare skin, held his chin to down over his chest and abdomen, his thigh, and up again. Finas blinked slowly, relishing the featherlight brushes. 

Casimiro took his right hand with both of his, twining their fingers, and took a deep breath. 

"I don't want you to harm Squiggly any more." He spoke low and tightened his grip. 

Why, Finas almost asked. It was obvious why. He studied his lover's face, caught his eye under his lashes as he looked away and started to fidged with his hand. Fingers bent and twisted this and that way.

"Do you regret killing-"

"No," Casimiro interrupted, "never." He pulled up his hand and put his lips to each of his fingertips, eyes half-lidded. He kissed his palm, Finas' fingers stroking his off-grey cheek, like rough silver and faded iron. Then his wrist, over the bright blue veins in his pale skin. 

"Just, act like it's not there," he whispered, trailing his lips down his right inner arm, towards Finas' current soulmark, towards Triangle. "Like so." 

Casimiro put his kiss over his soulmark with a gentleness he didn't know he possessed. Finas breathed in sharply, pulled at his arm. The softness of his lips weren't in the iron-shackle grip of the hand around his wrist, and he couldn't budge. 

"Cas!" he sat up with a hollow cry.

"It's just skin," he said, lips sealed over it and tongue kneading the flesh like he searched for a live vein, before he puckered and sucked over it, as if he could leave another mark behind.

Finas shut his eyes, lightheaded. It's not just skin, he wanted to say. 

But he understood Casimiro's reservation. Casimiro had never laid an ill-intent caress on the mark he'd shared with his late wife when he still lived, and he didn't want him to. It's all he had left of her. 

Squiggly was everything Casimiro had left of ... 'Squiggly'. He hadn't asked their name, and it wasn't offered. Wasn't sure he even wanted to know.

Several small pecks were given in quick succession on the edge of Triangle, chasing the shape. Casimiro looked away from him when he opened his eyes.

"I understand," he said, short and tense. Casimiro stopped, slowly smiled while still avoiding his gaze. "Just that one?" 

"Yea. Thanks." Casimiro said it like an apology. 

When he was let go he snapped his arm to his own mouth, sharp teeth burying into the inky mark to remove the affection so tenderly placed there. It was _wrong_ and didn't belong there. He chewed into his flesh again at a different angle, blood trickling down his chin and dripping off his elbow. Casimiro stroked his cheek, pulled back hair behind his ear with a growing smile, taking it to mean a sweet declaration, Finas thought.

He felt his stomach sink, weak and disarmed by the ringing knowledge that Casimiro had loved another, truly loved them in a way he couldn't. 

After all, they didn't match, did they? A matched love was deeper and more intimate by nature. Casimiro had killed his true love, for his sake. He flinched at the stab of guilt, eyes tearing up not only from the physical pain. He would lay down his life if he asked. If only he would ask. 

He opened his mouth to beg forgiveness for robbing him of real happiness, but crumbled and snapped his jaws tight into the open wound with a whimper. If he bit a mouthful off it would just regenerate. 

"Enough." There was a soft wrinkle of concern between Casimiro's brows as he pried his arm from his teeth. "You're mine," he whispered against his bloody face, lightly kissed his forehead. He climbed over his lap and pushed him down with firm hands. "I believe it's my turn to remind you of that, hm?"

**Author's Note:**

> www.it-s-blue-ink.tumbr.com


End file.
